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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23300599">kisses, rich and generous</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth'>thir13enth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Arcana (Visual Novel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, F/M, so no names or genders or whatever, written in second person</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:27:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,763</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23300599</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She reads you like a deck of cards.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Apprentice/Nadia (The Arcana)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>kisses, rich and generous</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>don’t mind me just being very obviously self-indulgent here. I just started this game like two days ago and I am. quite honestly. obsessed. no, no, nothing to see here. just rubble. move along now.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sleepless, you toss and turn in your sleep. No matter the position, no matter your patience, your mind and your body never find peace. Sometimes you catch brief moments of reverie, but like all good things, they quickly come to an end. You are left enveloped in pillows and blankets too hot for comfort, almost feverish.</p><p>You pull the sheets away from your body, and cool air falls over you — soothing your restless skin. You let a sigh escape your lips as you stand to your feet, adjusting the silk night gown over your body. Your attention turns to the window of the guest room, and you walk toward the ceiling-to-floor glass.</p><p>The Countess prides herself on her hospitality, ensuring her guests are treated as highly as herself. Your guest quarters are within her wings, and you share her same view of garden space below — the pale white moonlight casting silver shadows over the dark evergreen leaves and desaturating the vibrant color of the flower petals.</p><p>You haven’t been here long, just one or two days, yet the Countess’s respect and generosity has not gone unnoticed. It makes you question if she wants more from you than she is letting on, and perhaps that’s why it’s recently been so hard for you to focus on the task at hand.</p><p>Or maybe the better question is why <em>you’re </em>still here, working on someone else’s mysteries when you haven’t even figured yourself out.</p><p>Your head hurts just thinking about it.</p><p>You step away from the window, thinking to attempt sleep again. Your feet still itch to move, however. Maybe a small walk down the hallway can lend you just enough physical exertion to persuade your body back to bed. The atmosphere in your room is stagnant anyway, and you could do with some air circulation.</p><p>You open your door, glance up and down the hall. The hallway carries a different feel in the deep of night than how it does in the daytime. The paintings and décor appear haunted and decrepit, stuck as a mere representation of what value they once possessed. Relics frozen in time.</p><p>The floor creaks softly under your heel, but the night is otherwise silent. The guard at the end sits much too comfortably to be alert, their helmeted head practically crumpled into their body. A clean line of yellow light cuts the hallway in half, slicing through an abstract painting of what looked like an owl — straight through one of its wide blank eyes.</p><p>Your eyes follow the light, before realizing its source — the Countess’s room. The sliver of light slips past her door, only a small crack open.</p><p>As you approach her door, your hand instinctively reaches for the handle. You stop before you push the door open, thinking that this would break whatever unspoken boundaries you’ve set between each other. But you remember the Countess’s poised, calm eyebrows and intelligent, knowing demeanor —</p><p>She would never forget to close the door. This is an invitation.</p><p>The Countess is lonely.</p><p>You push open the door gently and it opens, silent on well-greased hinges. The Countess is inside, sitting in front of her vanity, her violet hair down.</p><p>You don’t think you’ve ever seen her hair down before. She always has at least some of it up, as if she never wants to let something as trivial as her own bangs make her miss an important observation.</p><p>She doesn’t react, although you’re certain that she’s noticed you. She doesn’t even say a word, simply glances briefly at you from the corner of her eye, all the meantime absentmindedly brushing her hair. You watch her slim fingers card through her hair, her comb running through her straight and already detangled hair. The teeth never catch, gliding smoothly through her hair, a deep purple river.</p><p>She wears nothing but her nightgown. Her body is unburdened of any earrings, any jewels on her body, any rings on her hands, any bracelets over her wrists. There is only the plain white gown over her body.</p><p>Even without color and regalia, she still looks like royalty.</p><p>You come behind her, meeting her ruby red eyes in the mirror. Only at this, she acknowledges your presence, gives you a small smile. She sets her comb down onto the vanity. Her eyes graze over your reflection, tracing over the silhouette of your shoulders, following the hem of your open neckline until the view disappears behind her head.</p><p>She turns in her seat, her eyes looking up at you. “Sleepless night?” she asks.</p><p>“Yes,” you reply, voice a little harsh from disuse. “You too, I’m guessing.”</p><p>“I have too many questions,” she replies, looking away briefly. Her hands fold in her lap. “And besides, after sleeping for so long, I think my body has grown sick of lying in bed, not doing a thing and watching the world go by without answers.” Her eyes flicker back to yours, a soft crimson. “And what about you? What keeps you up tonight?”</p><p>You genuinely don’t know the answer to this. Or at least you don’t know an answer you think she might find acceptable.</p><p>You’re an easy read. She knows your thoughts with just a glance.</p><p>“You can be honest with me, you know,” she tells you, taking your hands. “I know you’re serving as an investigator into my husband’s death, but I do want you to know that my generosity is not a payment for your expertise, rather a gift from my heart.” Her fingers weave into yours. “I should like if we could be close.”</p><p>You take a breath, feeling the tickle of her skin between your fingers, then muster up the words.</p><p>“Nightmares,” you admit finally. “It’s hard to sleep when you know what’s waiting, and when you don’t have any control over it.”</p><p>She gives you an understanding nod. “And what happens in your nightmares?” she presses, nevertheless.</p><p>You look at her, lips unmoving. She can tell it’s not an easy thing for you to admit.</p><p>“Come. Let’s get you sitting comfortably,” she offers. She leads you to the edge of her bed, her hand lifting the curtain draped over the canopy of her bed.</p><p>You sit, swallowing against your dry throat. This isn’t something you ever confessed to anyone — not even Asra. <em>Especially</em> not Asra, who would not enjoy the thought of you facing demons he could not ward away.</p><p>How the Countess is able to get else words out of you so easily… Well, maybe that’s something you’ll figure out later.</p><p>“That’s the thing,” you reply. “Nothing happens in my nightmares. There’s only faces… faces that I recognize without any memory of how. I hear voices, too… familiar but I don’t know why. That’s all. Nothing else, but I always wake up feeling this nauseating pit of dread at the center of my body.”</p><p>Suddenly realizing your hands are clamped tight around hers, you loosen your grip, apologizing under your breath. If the Countess was at all in pain, she doesn’t give you any sign of it. She urges you to go on, her eyes never straying from yours.</p><p>“I can’t tell,” you start again. “I can’t tell if these are dreams I’ve had many times before or if these are memories I’m almost forgetting. I don’t know where I came from or where I’ve been before. I keep trying to put the pieces together but they don’t make sense.” Recognizing the apprehension in your voice, you stop suddenly. “I’m sorry, Countess,” you quickly say. “I don’t mean to worry you.”</p><p>“Nadia,” she reminds you, with a smile. “Do you remember when I first met you in your shop?”</p><p>You nod, and she continues.</p><p>“I told you I experience… awful dreams, too, right?” She revises on the spot. “No, they are nightmares, at best. They make it hard for me to sleep as well… but for some reason ever since you’ve been at my side, I… am not as scared of them.” She pulls your hands into her lap. “I want that to be the same for you, in the same way you’ve granted me relief. I want you to feel safe within my walls — like nothing can harm you. I simply will not allow it.”</p><p>“Well, you’ve certainly ensured I stay comfortable,” you say, as brightly as you can, gesturing to your robes.</p><p>She looks to where you’re gesturing. You notice her eyes linger — low, where the robe is tied loosely around your waist.</p><p>You think to suddenly add that simply her smell — jasmine, lavender, earth — calms you, grounds you, keeps your energies in place. But you decide that’s far too embarrassing to admit.</p><p>“How about you sleep here with me tonight?” she offers.</p><p>Your eyes widen. You know she is forward but never so much so. “Count—"</p><p>“<em>Nadia</em>,” she urges you again, in a more demanding tone and with a finger on your lips. She leans in, reading your face. You feel her cool breath over your flushed skin, your eyes inevitably drawn to her lips.</p><p>“So, it shall be then,” she determines.</p><p>She urges you to lay back into her bed, and as if taking orders, your body — as wildly as your heart thumps in your chest — finds itself sinking into the soft sheets. You watch the Countess walk to her door. She pushes it completely shut this time. It closes with a loud click. She extinguishes each of the candles around the room, pressing her fingers together around the wicks to snap out the flames.</p><p>You feel her weight sink into the bed, and you feel her body near yours. In the light purple haze of the moonlight streaming through canopy drapes over her bed, you can see her smile.</p><p>“Maybe now we will be able to sleep,” she says. “Maybe now we’ll have peaceful slumber, now that we’re together.”</p><p>Silently you agree, your hands finding hers again.</p><p>She takes this as permission, leaning in and pressing her lips against yours. Her kiss is starts slow but incrementally turns deeper and more passionate. Her fingers untangle from yours, reaching into your hair and running through it. Her hand falls back over your shoulder and down your chest, before resting at your abdomen, beneath your robe.</p><p>You shudder at the feel of her cool fingertips against your skin, yet her touch burns desire deep within you. Your breath catches and your eyes flutter wide open.</p><p>“You know,” she says. “If there is anything you want, you need only ask.”</p><p>But you’re an easy read. You don’t even need to say a word.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>find me on <a href="https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep">twitter</a> where you can witness my obvious descent into this fandom and where you will likely find me sputtering on about julian and/or lucio and/or portia and/or nahara -- okay honestly all of the damn characters, damn. you love to see it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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